We are coming up on 15 months since George Floyd died under Derek Chauvin’s knee. Despite nation-wide protests and massive dialogues at the local, state, and national levels, we’ve seen no institutional changes to speak of in response to this event.
That’s not for lack of ideas. Ideas I shared repeatedly in this blog.
Unfortunately, it was quite predictable that these reforms would fail to be adopted, given the nature of the problem and the realities of politics. A long discourse that purports to offer a better, more practical approach to ending racism (a broader issue than those surrounding George Floyd) inadvertently illustrates the problem.
The linked article (you don’t really have to read it to follow my point here) discusses the structural problems in the criminal justice system (they are legitimate), but fails in reaching the next conclusion – that those problems are as much the Democrats’ fault as the Republicans’ (even more so, if we consider who’s behind policing-for-profit).
This makes them ‘non-denominational’ problems, in that neither their cause nor their solution can be assigned to “the other party” or “our party.” This dilutes the political payoff for solving them, even though solving them would be of great benefit to society.
So, they don’t get solved.
Instead, people continue to talk endlessly about them, framing all they say as “the other team is at fault.” Actually solving the problems would come at a cost: their diminishment as a political issue. Without a concrete partisan benefit, i.e. “our team” fixed the problem created by “their team,” the tally doesn’t come out positive.
The politician that is a true statesman and public servant for all is rare in comparison to the many that thrive on feeding their constituencies to the detriment of their opponents’. It took only five weeks for the movement spawned by George Floyd’s death to corrupt into a cynical power and [OPM][18] game, one that benefits more from failure to solve than from solving.
It is very rare to meet someone who admits or even boasts of personal racism (rich, entitled, white, wokerati who grovel about it notwithstanding). It is very common to hear people claim other people are racist. It’s alway the other guy who’s racist, of course, and nowadays the most common “reason” is that he’s on the other team.
Meanwhile, the real problems caused by real racism don’t get solved, and the people who would benefit most from solutions continue to be used as pawns and poster-children rather than being treated as actual human beings.
Loading ...
Active Comment Threads
Most Commented Posts
Universal Background Checks – A Back Door to Universal Registration
COVID Mask Follies
When Everything Is Illegal…
An Anti-Vax Inflection Point?
“Not In My Name”
The Great Social Media Crackup
War Comes Through The Overton Window
The First Rule of Italian Driving
Most Active Commenters